Chapter Text
1.
OBJECT(S): Uncategorized holodisks
ACCESS LEVEL: Alpha
SUBJECT/AFFILIATION: S’chn T’gai Spock
SUBJECT STATUS: Public data available in the following Federation database sections—[New Vulcan], [New Vulcan Ambassadors and Officials]
DECRYPTION DATE: 2 267
RECORDING DATE: Unknown
<fragment damaged during recording>
… navigation malfunction. My calculations, with a five percent margin error, show eight hours and twelve minutes until the life support system failure. This shuttle is utterly worthless, Jim, and I must concede defeat in our long-standing dispute regarding the supremacy of Romulan technology over Federation’s advancements.
The circumstances are less than favorable, yet the fear of death within me is quiet. I turn to meditation: slowing my respiration and heartbeat, I delve into the depths of my memory to spend my final hours among carefully preserved echoes of the past. Perhaps, old friend, certain images conjured by my mind would greatly surprise you, as well as my extreme sentimentality in my declining years. Not to mention the century away from my kind that has changed my way of expression irrevocably; my once concise speech is now all but obliterated by metaphorical expressions and vernacular.
As always, my memory leads me back to you.
I recall the scarlet sands of Vulcan, the embers of the blood-red fury—that first contact with your mind once sealed from me—and the shattering sorrow your death wrought, and the overwhelming joy of discovering it was but only an illusion. I recall Enterprise’s first odyssey and that ritual of obscure properties that you used to indulge in at the end of the stellar year, when certain enthusiasts from the science division attempted to decorate the laboratories and arboretum in the most bizarre manner. You used to override the replicator in your quarters, forcing it to produce an unpleasant-looking drink containing traces of milk, eggs of the subspecies Gallus gallus domesticus, and Tellarite whiskey. Each time, you would invite me to sample it. You would say: “Come on, Spock, it’s to celebrate the birthday of the divine child from Earth.” I would counter: “Captain, none of the Terra’s children I have encountered exhibited the slightest indication of divinity, if such can be defined from a scientific standpoint.” You would laugh. You would ask me to never change, while I’d express perfectly reasonable perplexity over such a concept.
I never learned the taste of the aforementioned drink, although much later, I studied the cultural context of its consumption. I did not remain unchanged—time is relentless even to those allotted a term perhaps too long. You are forever young in my memory, but I, the current me—am a very old man: my body has weakened, my face is now lined with wrinkles, my hair has lost its natural pigment. Like anyone who has lived for so long, I have made many mistakes. I have been unreasonable or, conversely, too reasonable—where feelings should have triumphed over reason; I have been blind, I have been cruel. I have known the weight of guilt: I have rationalized it, turned it into energy for the constant motion forward, and witnessed the suns of dozens of new worlds, and made discoveries that once seemed unimaginable.
There is only one thing I regret, but these regrets come almost a hundred years too late, and I ought to conserve oxygen.
My katra still bears the mark of yours. Pash tah [1], Jim.
2.
OBJECT(S): Uncategorized holodisks
ACCESS LEVEL: Alpha
SUBJECT/AFFILIATION: S’chn T’gai Spock
SUBJECT STATUS: Public data available in the following Federation database sections—[New Vulcan], [New Vulcan Ambassadors and Officials]
CROSS-REFERENCES: [Romulan Mining Vessels], [Narada]
DECRYPTION DATE: 2 266
RECORDING DATE: 2 247
I owe my current position to luck—one of the most irrational phenomena in the finite Universe. Contrary to the expected outcome, I am alive, in relatively good health, and heading toward Omega Cygni aboard a ship whose technical condition would have driven Mr. Scott to a fit of rage. You, Jim, would have found my present situation rather amusing: a dignified elder finding refuge on a smugglers' ship.
Nevertheless, far more significant than where I am is when I am, and now I have enough information to analyze the results of the encounter with the temporal anomaly and arrive at somewhat definitive conclusions. Remarkable and, in many ways, tragic ones.
The supernova that destroyed Romulus created a wormhole and sent my ship and a mining vessel called Narada into an alternate reality line, one hundred and fifty-four years behind the one known to us. Narada’s captain held me responsible for what had happened, deciding that the immediate destruction of my home planet in this world and my death would ease the bitterness of loss and quench his thirst for vengeance. As you might guess, Jim, I did not share his vision. While captive aboard the Narada, I managed to remotely initiate the detonation of the red matter, previously created to save Romulus, and breached the shuttle access codes. But, to my deepest regret, I could do absolutely nothing for the unknown Starfleet cruiser that found itself, as they say, between a rock and a hard place.
I was convinced I would not survive the explosion and hoped this fate would befall the Romulans as well. What I did not foresee was that the resulting wormhole would eject me relatively unharmed into the opposite sector of the quadrant, with the temporal distortion amounting to a mere fourteen years, and with no spatial displacement of any kind.
My rescue, however, was not quite a divine intervention. I suspect the first thought of Ms. Bashir, the captain of Vagrant IV—I have a theory that the numeral indicates the number of reincarnations the ship has undergone—was to send my deeply stasis-locked body on its final journey from the cargo deck. But the potential benefit from selling even an admittedly damaged Romulan shuttle, whose onboard computer access was impossible without my involvement, outweighed other inconveniences. After I regained consciousness and immediately heightened the crew’s anxiety with inquiries about the current stardate, we reached a mutually beneficial agreement.
The voyage to Omega Cygni should take approximately twenty days. Living conditions aboard Vagrant are far from pleasant, and its medical equipment is scarce, but I am not fastidious and spend most of my time in a healing trance. Such a measure is the only thing that helps me cope with unfamiliar emotions. I am now extraordinarily far away from everything I have ever known, Jim, and I have only a perfunctory understanding of this reality. Without access to the network and Federation databases—assuming it exists here in a form familiar to us both—I cannot obtain reliable data.
Nothing connects me to this world except for now-irrelevant memories. And except for you, my friend, though you have existed only in my consciousness for quite a long time.
3.
OBJECT (S): Uncategorized holodisks
ACCESS LEVEL: Alpha
SUBJECT/AFFILIATION: S’chn T’gai Spock
SUBJECT STATUS: Public data available in the following Federation database sections—[New Vulcan], [New Vulcan Ambassadors and Officials]
DECRYPTION DATE: 2 266
RECORDING DATE: 2 247
Our partnership with captain Bashir is destined to last longer than either of us anticipated. Though my words may sound illogical—it is doubtful that one can convey another’s experience in this manner—but imagine yourself in my position, Jim. How would you act if you became someone who never existed, and moreover—a civilian? An identification card, a flight license, an account with the necessary amount of credits—this is the bare minimum, essential for achieving even the simplest goals. At present, I possess none of the above and, I must confess, I long for the privileges that my origins and occupation once provided.
Miss Bashir is far from naive. She has regarded me with cautiousness since I was brought aboard the Vagrant. I suspect that even in this world, Vulcan elders rarely find themselves in a situation similar to mine. Even less often, they negotiate sales of a stolen shuttle and then calibrate an obsolete cargo vessel’s unstable core, which has seen better days.
“Well, ain’t you just full of fucking surprises,” Miss Bashir tells me; her lexicon is as coarse as Dr. McCoy’s once was, but not nearly as inventive. “And I have a feeling you ain’t speaking a word of truth.”
In exchange for my assistance, I ask several favors at once, and Miss Bashir’s reaction is predictable:
“That’s kind of a lot, Sorek. And what do you think… " Her irritation is apparent.
Until now, my adherence to the Temporal Prime Directive has been unsatisfactory. While I was unable to prevent the destruction of the cruiser that crossed paths with Narada, the handover of 24th-century Romulan technology to Orion pirates can hardly be considered an insignificant violation of the natural course of local history, and logic dictates that I must adhere to the rules henceforth. As for the name, the necessity to choose a new one is justified not as much by the Directive as by my lack of information about Nero’s status. Can I assume the threat to my planet has passed?
“Captain,” I make the most benevolent expression possible. “Your assistance will not go unrewarded, but I must warn you: my assets are limited, and therefore the compensation will take a non-trivial form. Would your crew be able to establish operations for mining pergium? To preempt questions, we are talking about an unregistered deposit.”
“Half the Federation fleet’s running around the quadrant scanning every lousy asteroid for this rare-ass rock. Do you really think they missed something?”
Archea, Jim. The Menkalinan system, the first exploration sector. A tiny planet with unusual magnetic activity, long hidden from our radars and scanners by its sister’s, Callista, gravitational field. The karst caves there had not the most welcoming level of radiation, which became even more unwelcoming when an earthquake cut us off from the rest of the party and your protective suit was damaged. We spent twelve hours in near-complete darkness—near-complete, for when pergium is present in significant quantities, it gives off a faint glow. I remember how the light, invisible to the human eye, fell on the glass of your helmet, gilding the drops of sweat on your forehead and cheeks. I remember feeling suffocating helplessness, acknowledging for the first time that the possibility of your death became a source of irrational fear for me.
“We’re gonna need a fuckton of equipment—hack and grit won’t do shit here. Plus a decent geologist. And then—where the hell do we take all this stuff?”
“I believe I can provide assistance with the sales arrangements.”
“Let me guess—you’re gonna ask for such a cut that I’ll immediately stop liking your offer.”
“My commission would be comparatively modest. Enrichment is not my ultimate goal.”
“So what’s your goal then, Sorek?”
“I am merely an unfortunate traveler, Captain. Finding myself far from home, I am looking for a way to return.”
Miss Bashir does not need to know there is not enough Vulcan blood in my veins for a true contempt for lies.